Double Fine Opens Prototyping Process to the Public

Today, the folks at Double Fine Productions (Psychonauts, Brutal Legend) announced that their annual Amnesia Fortnight Project would be open to the public this year. This prototyping process has given rise to complete consumer games like Costume Quest and Once Upon a Monster.

In the past, Amnesia Fortnight was held in private at Double Fine's San Francisco headquarters. During a two week period, the developers would split into smaller teams and each make a game during that time. "I wanted to have the company have other voices besides mine, making games," notes Double Fine President and CEO Tim Schafer in an interview with IGN.

Previously, the team leaders of these prototypes were selected by Schafer himself. This year, however, you can vote on your favorite pitch from the various teams and contribute to the project on the Humble Bundle website. You can pay whatever you want, and you can even divert some of your payment to charity.

If you're interested in time traveling bro brawlers, space station simulators, or physics-based blob puzzlers, this is a project you may want to look into.

Once the winning projects are selected, 2 Player Productions will document the development process for two weeks. Once Amnesia Fortnight ends, contributors (That's You!) will receive all the prototypes, as well as two historical prototypes for Costume Quest and Happy Song (which inspired Once Upon a Monster). And perhaps one of the prototypes will even evolve into a complete consumer product! But Double Fine can make no promises of that. "It could all crash and burn," Schafer warned us with a laugh.

When asked if the team would be interested in keeping this process open to the public in future years, Schafer simply mused "once we open the doors to the chocolate factory, it's really hard to close them again."

To contribute and vote on your favorite pitch, head over to the Humble Bundle website now.

Ryan Clements writes for IGN and finished Halo 4 yesterday. He was impressed. Follow him on Twitter at @PwamCider.

Source : ign[dot]com

The 13 Most Shameless Super Mario Rip-Offs on iPhone

He's the most iconic cartoon character on earth - a video game legend and the star of nearly three decades worth of incredible platforming games, go-karting games, freelance gynecologic work and whatever the hell he was doing in that game alleyway. Yet aside from a few trips and stumbles, Nintendo always makes sure that every entry in the Super Mario franchise has fantastic quality control.

Sadly though, Nintendo doesn't make any of these terrible Super Mario rip-offs on the iPhone. Most of these have since been altered or removed entirely from the App store since their initial slips past Apple security, but here we have preserved them as they originally appeared in all of their awful, awful glory.

Editor's Note: Every single one of the titles below are (or at least were) real, actual games that hit the iOS App Store.

3D Cartoon Land Safari

You see, the way copyright law works is that if you change only one detail of a product you've completely stolen, nobody can ever sue you. Right?

A Kaizo World

"AVOID DON'T BUY DODGE THIS GAME TO SAVING A DOLLAR"

Barrels!

Donkey Wrong.

Cloud Run

DELETE ->

Game Guy

Remember when classic retro handheld systems had the phrase "Classic Retro Handheld System" on them?

Mole Kart

Instead of a blue shell, why not throw your credit card?

Monino

How many "lifes" have been wasted playing this shameless rip-off?

Otaku Dash

Yes, that's a pile of sh*t. On top of the pile of sh*t that is this game. So basically this game has pile of sh*t inside a pile of sh*t. Sh*t.

Super Daddio

This game runs at more frames per second than Mario 64, hence it's better so therefore checkmate.

Super Jump World

At least this one manages to ditch the anti-European stereotypes inherent in the actual Mario games. Oh wait, this one is just racist against the Irish.

Super World Adventures

Why play as Mario when there's a farmer who just realized how high he was?

Tommy's World

Oh no! Watch out, Tommy!

Wait, who the f*ck is Tommy?!?

Ultra Dario

When there's no more Mega Barrio, Duper Marlo and Superb Sargento in hell, the Ultra Dario will walk the earth.

Brian Altano and Mike Drucker are hopefully much more fun and original than any of these terrible clones when they write IGN's premier comedy news show, Up At Noon. Follow them on Twitter at @agentbizzle and @MikeDrucker.

Source : ign[dot]com

Psychonauts Coming to PlayStation Network

Double Fine Productions has quite the following these days, what with cult hits like Brutal Legend, Costume Quest and Stacking. But the studio’s very first game – Psychonauts – holds a special place in the hearts of gamers.

So PlayStation gamers in particular will be excited to know that Psychonauts is set for release on the PlayStation Network as a PS2 Classic. Launched on Xbox and PlayStation 2 in 2005, Psychonauts will come to PSN in North America on August 28th. There’s no word yet on its release date in other territories, and no price for the game has been confirmed, though all other PS2 Classics cost $9.99.

Excited? Good! While you wait for August 28th to roll around, why not check out our original review of the game?

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.

Source : ign[dot]com